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The report 'If blood and pus were to pour from husband's nose'
Q:
[...c/f http://www.livingislam.org/n/wmnc_e.html#ch-5]
Why is this addition in Bazzar ["If blood, suppuration, and pus, were to
pour from the husband's nose and the wife licked it with her tongue, she would
still never be able to fulfil his rights over her,"] and is their a
specific narrator within the chain who may be the defining factor in
tackling the reason for the additional statement?
A:
Good question. The preliminary reply before opening al-Bazzar is that
the latter's Musnad is in reality a collection of gharib and afrad
Âhadith. This genre - the Afrad - culminated with the same-titled book by
al-Daraqutni whose comments are reputedly stronger because they are
definite. Al-Bazzar limited himself to subjective comments such as:
"_WE_ know this to be narrated only through so-and-so" while
al-Daraqutni would say: "This is narrated only through so-and-so" in
more definite terms, although this may also be what al-Bazzar ultimately
meant. So it remains to see who is that specific single narrator
al-Bazzar identified when he included that narration. For myself I could
not find it in al-Bazzar but the present edition is far from complete.
Q:
[...] This one mentions the blood and pus, not the nose.
- Mu'adh in Musnad Ahmed and Tabrani with one chain and in Musnad al-Harith
with
a different chain, classified by al-Busayri etc as being narrated by
reliable narrators. This mentions both the blood and pus as well as the
nose.
- Abu Hurairah in Hakim etc. Its slight weakness allows it to be used
for backup. It mentions both portions as well."
A:
The correct grading of the chain for the hadith of Abu Sa`id al-Khudri
radyAllahu `anh is "gharib, jayyid" (while al-Dhahabi's rather radical
verdict for the hadith itself is *munkar* because of Rabi`a ibn `Uthman
al-Madani) as narrated by al-Nasa'i in al-Kubra, Ibn Hibban, al-Hakim,
and al-Bayhaqi in al-Kubra and its wording (about the woman who asked
the question and then swore she would never marry) is minimal. The
wording simply states: "If there was a mouth-sore in him (qurhatun) and
she licked him (= 'and she still kissed him passionately'), she would
still be in his debt." There was no mention of "from head to feet" or
"pus and blood" or "oozing from his nose" or "leprosy".
Note: the claim by Imam al-Haythami that the above chain all consists in
"the narrators of the sahih" was respectfully rejected by Ibn Hajar in
his Mukhtasar of Musnad al-Bazzar [1:589 no. 1046] because of Rabi`a ibn
`Uthman al-Madani but al-Busiri confirmed that al-Haythami was correct
since Muslim narrates from him the hadith "The strong believer is better
than the weak one...."
Now, al-Bazzar [cf. Kashf al-Astar 2:478 no. 1465], Ibn Abi Shayba, and
al-Daraqutni in his Sunan narrate it through the same gharib chain
(which al-Mundhiri said was good) from Abu Sa`id through Rabi`a but with
*various* additional wordings adding oozing from the nose, pus, blood
and/or swallowing! This additional wording is most probably a mix-up
with some other narration.
Indeed, Imam Ahmad also narrates with a hasan to weak chain in the
Musnad that it is Mu`adh himself who said in answer to a woman in Yemen:
"If you were to return to him [your husband] and find that leprosy had
broken through his flesh and perforated his nostrils and found his
nostrils oozing with pus and blood then licked and swallowed them up,
you would not have repaid your debt to him. You can never repay it!"
This is mawquf.
As for the wording from Anas radyaAllahu `anh in Imam Ahmad's Musnad it
is about the story of the rebarbative camel which is definitely
authentic and even mutawatir according to Qadi `Iyad. Also mutawatir
according to Imam al-Tirmidhi is the segment "Were I to order anyone to
prostrate to someone else, I would order wives to prostrate to their
husbands due to the debt they owe them." The rest, namely the pus
segment, is not authentic with this chain, as pointed out by al-Arna'ut.
Rather, it is probably also an extraneous import and concatenation, due
perhaps to Khalaf ibn Khalifa who turned senile in his old age since
only Husayn al-Marrudhi reports this addition from him while other
students of Khalaf narrate the same hadith without it.
As for the gharib chain from Abu Hurayra radyaAllahu `anh in al-Bazzar
[cf. Kashf al-Astar 2:178 no. 1466] and al-Hakim it is terminally flimsy
(wahin) and very weak (da`if jiddan) due to Sulayman ibn Dawud al-Yamami
as stated by Ibn Adi in al-Kamil, al-Dhahabi in Talkhis al-Mustadrak and
Hafiz Ibn Hajar in his marginalia on al-Targhib. Al-Bukhari and Abu
Hatim criticized this Sulayman severely and the latter said he did not
know a single narration of his to be authentic. As you know the da`if
jiddan cannot be used to strengthen other chains and cannot be
strengthened by them either.
There is another unusable chain in al-Tabarani from Abu Umama al-Bahili
radyaAllahu `anh since it contains the arch-liar (kadhdhab) `Abd al-Nur
ibn `Abd Allah as stated by al-Haythami in Majma` al-Zawa'id.
Al-Harith does not narrate it but rather he mentions that al-A`mash
related from Ibrahim al-Nakha`i: "It used to be said that if a woman
licked her husband's leprous nose she would still not be repaying her
debt to him."
There are two more famous general wordings than the "qurha" one for the
hadiths beginning with the expression "Were I to order anyone to
prostrate to someone else..." followed by the mention of the husband's
rights over his wife. One is: "that she should respond to him even if
she were on top of the camel-saddle [i.e. giving birth] / over the oven
[i.e. baking bread]" and the other "that if he were to command her to
heave rocks from a yellow mountain to a black mountain and from a black
mountain to a white mountain, she should do it."
The latter two narrations were included in our teacher Shaykh `Abd
al-Hadi's Kharsa's 40 Hadiths on the Rights of the Two Spouses and he
explained that they were hyperboles; but it is telling that he did not
include the "qurha" hadith in any of its wordings whatsoever. Nor did I
ever hear it mentioned by any of our teachers in their advices and talks
on the mutual rights of spouses and the qualities of a good marriage.
Note: In his English version of Imam al-Ghazali's Etiquette of Marriage,
Muhtar Holland offers the translation "If he were sore from head to
feet" which is inaccurate.
And Allah knows best.
gibril
2008-06-06